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How Dr Kalpana Sankar is Empowering Communities By way of Hand in Hand India


As Dr Kalpana Sankar learn a marriage invitation delivered to her, she teared up a tad bit. The bride-to-be was eager for Dr Sankar to bless her on her special occasion. “My mom and I owe rather a lot to you,” she wrote.

Dr Sankar, the nuclear scientist turned champion of social improvement is the co-founder and chairperson of Hand in Hand India — a world NGO based mostly in India that works in direction of empowering ladies, educating kids, creating healthcare entry, combating local weather change and creating jobs.

A charity drive from the early days of the NGO
Hand in Hand India began out as a charity to eradicate baby labour in Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu

She lets us in on the journey main as much as the touching second. “Sheela (the woman’s mom) was the chief of the primary enterprise ‘Crisp Bakery Unit’ arrange by Hand in Hand India. As a single mom, her earnings from the enterprise helped her educate each her kids and fund her daughter’s marriage ceremony.”

The duo didn’t overlook these acts of kindness. Nor have the lakhs of girls helped by Dr Sankar. The genesis of Hand in Hand India was in a charity mannequin that began in 2002 in Tamil Nadu’s Kancheepuram.

‘It was heartbreaking to observe younger kids at work’

Hailed for its silk sarees, Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu is house to over 60,000 looms and over 45,000 weavers. Superficially, it is a matter to take pleasure in. A better probe will unearth the tough actuality hidden in these statistics.

Behind closed loom doorways, younger kids work onerous to spin zari (gold thread) and silk into vibrant sarees that make their strategy to the remainder of India and the world.

Conversations with these kids and their households led Dr Sankar to find the foundation of this. “Kids, historically, are an affordable supply of labour. Households that haven’t any everlasting revenue ship their kids to work as bonded labourers within the weaving business.” Within the tug-of-war between a good livelihood and a sq. meal, the youngsters’s futures had been caught within the crosshairs.

Dr Kalpana Sankar and philanthropist Percy Barnevik joined hands to champion change at grassroots level in Tamil Nadu communities
Dr Kalpana Sankar and philanthropist Dr Percy Barnevik joined arms to champion change on the grassroots stage in Tamil Nadu communities

Subsequently, round 2004, one other sensible thoughts was troubled by this urgent challenge. Swedish businessman and philanthropist Dr Percy Barnevik learnt about Dr Sankar — who was then working as a specialist for the UN company’s Worldwide Fund for Agricultural Growth. Barnevik approached Dr Sankar with a proposal to handle “a small charity working to eradicate baby labour in Kancheepuram”.

The latter stated a direct ‘sure’, and Hand in Hand India was born.

‘We had been in a position to assist most of them get their childhoods again’

These kids wanted a shift of their instant realities; the duo figured that residential faculties could be the most effective guess to free them from the labour power. “We began eight residential faculties throughout Tamil Nadu, the place the curriculum centered on Tamil and English literature, arithmetic, bodily training, and activity-based studying. We additionally invested within the children’ counselling and would monitor their progress over a time frame. Almost 40,000 kids benefited from these faculties,” Dr Sankar notes. However, she says, they deduced that broader social sensitisation was wanted to sort out the problem of kid labour.

And so, in time, the imaginative and prescient was extrapolated to the youngsters’ households too. “We determined to deal with problems with neighborhood well being, expertise improvement, and finally, job creation. Right now, we’re a pan-Indian NGO rewriting the story of rural India,” Dr Sankar smiles.

Dr Percy Barnevik (L) and Dr Kalpana Sankar (R)
Dr Percy Barnevik and Dr Kalpana Sankar have been reaching out to rural communities throughout India via Hand in Hand India

Irrespective of the character of the day. A name from one of many kids — informing her a few job they’ve secured or sharing a life occasion along with her — manages to mild up Dr Sankar’s temper. Level this out to her and she or he says it’s all the validation she wants.

Take Meera’s story for example. Meera was recognized by the Baby Labour Elimination Programme (CLEP) discipline workers in 2013. The household’s ‘scheduled tribe’ standing meant they had been ostracised from society and Meera and her siblings had been compelled to take up odd jobs — working at brick kilns, chopping forest wooden, and grazing cattle.

The Hand in Hand India group inspired Meera’s mother and father to enrol her and her three siblings on the Dhamaneri Residential Particular Coaching Centre (RSTC) in Tiruvallur district. The group then coaxed Meera to full her research till Class 12, offering her with all the mandatory sources.

Right now, she is a hit story.

Tales like these underscore what Dr Sankar has been emphasising — one’s roots mustn’t be a expertise differentiator.

Hand in hand with India’s remotest areas

The cabinets in Dr Sankar’s workplace are heavy beneath the load of her many accolades  — a PhD in nuclear physics; the celebrated Lifetime Achievement Award in Monetary Inclusion (2023) for her work in driving transformative socio-economic adjustments within the rural heartlands of North and South India; the Nari Shakti Puraskar (2016); and the World Award for Girls Empowerment (2019) from UN Girls and the Kingdom of Bahrain.

On the coronary heart of each enterprise is the need to create an inclusion mannequin that doesn’t subscribe to conference. One which makes her most proud is the monetary inclusion mannequin, she shares. “We have now been in a position to present monetary inclusion to 1 million poor individuals. The truth that we now have created 1.5 million jobs is a testimonial to the onerous work of my colleagues.”

Dr Kalpana Sankar receiving an award from Former President Ram Nath Kovind
Dr Kalpana Sankar has been the recipient of quite a few nationwide and worldwide accolades
Dr Kalpana Sankar was the recipient of the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2016
Dr Kalpana Sankar was the recipient of the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2016

In 2023, rural credit score accounted for less than 20.8 p.c (Rs 11.99 lakh crore) of the Rs 57.58 lakh crore sanctioned by NBFCs in 2021. This highlights the urban-rural divide in entry to credit score. Thus, when designing a blueprint for the job creation mannequin, Dr Sankar says facilitating entry to financial capital was prime. She determined to maintain monetary independence for ladies on the fore.

“We ensured this whereas offering them [the women] ability coaching to hone their entrepreneurial potential,” she says. The module rests on the spine that credit score alone is not going to suffice. Ability coaching and training are very important to sustaining a enterprise. “And so, we prepare these ladies in group dynamics, advantages of financial savings, curiosity computation, and monetary and practical literacy,” she shares, including that watching the ladies develop from power to power and relish their newfound independence thrills her.

A World Financial institution report underscores how 79 p.c of rural households shouldn’t have entry to a proper mortgage, whereas 97 p.c of households with no formal mortgage report not having utilized for a mortgage previously three years. The explanations they cite are a “lack of want” and “sophisticated procedures”.

Through her work Dr Kalpana Sankar has ensured over a million poor people have secured employment
By way of her work Dr Kalpana Sankar has ensured over one million ladies have secured employment

That is the place Hand in Hand India steps in. “We provide loans to members of our self-help teams via MFIs or banks to assist their companies take off. The rise in livelihood actions additionally ensures that ladies are in a position to repay their loans with no hassle,” says Dr Sankar. She provides that via the ‘Graduated Entrepreneurs Programme’, Hand in Hand India companions with reputed tutorial establishments, banks, and MFIs, and focuses on selling women-led companies. These social entrepreneurship programmes facilitate entry to capital, financial institution credit score and a mentoring programme, paving the best way for gender equality and monetary independence for ladies.

Through the skill development model, women are trained to run tailor shops, agricultural units, petty shops, and mobile repair stores
By way of the ability improvement mannequin, ladies are educated to run tailor outlets, agricultural models, petty outlets, and cellular restore shops

This isn’t all. Having carefully labored with the agricultural strata of society for over 20 years now, she is attuned to their struggles. Usually, loans have to transcend credit score. “We additionally facilitate livestock insurance coverage and emergency well being service insurance coverage for self-help group members and their spouses to mitigate dangers of debt traps,” she mentions.

Dr Sankar has been instrumental within the formation of 5,01,766 self-help teams via Hand in Hand India and the creation of fifty,16,728 family-based enterprises — these embrace tailor outlets, cellular restore outlets, petty shops, meals companies, and 1,25,351 micro-enterprises. A complete of two.2 million ladies throughout Bihar, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, and Uttarakhand have been helped, she claims.

The women, who are part of the self-help groups, are given loans, livestock insurance and emergency health service insurance
The ladies, who’re a part of the self-help teams, are given loans, livestock insurance coverage and emergency well being service insurance coverage

Whereas the Hand in Hand India chapter was incepted in 2004, the NGO has prolonged to Afghanistan, South Africa, and Brazil.

The scope of their work contains however just isn’t restricted to baby labour elimination; ability improvement — ladies have been given ability coaching in agriculture, the automotive business, handicrafts, attire and wellness; entry to healthcare; pure useful resource administration and sustainable waste administration.

A holistic view of the work of Hand in Hand India
A holistic view of the work of Hand in Hand India

Their village upliftment programme is designed to construct self-reliant communities with the potential to result in built-in improvement in rural India. By way of this, Dr Sankar says, over 500 villages have been helped throughout Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

The individuals Dr Sankar extends a hand of assist to are those that should not born to privilege. However via the scope of her work, she is making certain a world of fairness. As for the hundreds of thousands she has impacted, their wins really feel private. Their success is a nod to her resolution to assist rural India be on par with its city counterpart.

Edited by Pranita Bhat; Photos supply: Dr Kalpana Sankar

Sources:
Retail lending has grown extra in rural areas relative to city areas: CAFRAL report by The Hindu Enterprise Line, Revealed on 11 November 2023.
Enhancing Entry to Finance for India’s Rural Poor by Priya Basu.

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